Losing La Liga will be failure: Barcelona’s Pique

Barcelona, April 29 (IANS) FC Barcelona defender Gerard Pique has admitted his club’s season would be a failure if they did the seemingly impossible and lose the La Liga football trophy.

Pique has seen his team surrender a comfortable lead at the top of the La Liga table, following a 1-2 loss in the “Clasico” derby match against Real Madrid early in April.

That defeat was the first of three straight losses in La Liga which has allowed second-placed Atletico Madrid to move equal on points with Barcelona, but behind them in the standings due to an inferior goal difference.

Real Madrid are third, trailing the top two by just a point.

The Spanish club were also eliminated from the Champions League by Atletico at the quarter-final stage.

“As long as I have been at the club, if you do not win the league, it is a failure. There are three league games and we are depending upon ourselves, but we may lose the league if we do not win matches,” Pique was quoted as saying by goal.com on Thursday.

“We in this club have to compete for the major titles and the league is a major title.”

Pique struggled to explain the downturn in form, but said even the best sides have off-days.

“It is normal to have potholes throughout the year but we had bad luck that they have arrived at those crucial moments,” the Spanish international said.

“But we do not give them more importance. We still have the league and the Copa del Rey two very exciting titles and we have to go for them,” Pique concluded.